Death by Dinosaur: A Sam Stellar Mystery

by Jacqueline Guest

  Chapter 11

  Needed: One Grumpy Ally

  “Come on Paige, we’re late!” Sam picked up her lunch bag, then felt in her pocket to make sure her security card was there. Without the magic card, she’d be unable to get into the building or half the rooms in it.

  “Okay, let’s go, go, go!” Paige rushed past, frantically clutching at her sweater as her purse slid off her shoulder and her lunch bag ripped. Cursing, she stuffed the torn bag into her purse as they raced out the door.

  The trip to the museum had both girls pedalling the old bikes as hard as they could. The early morning air was crisp and clean, making Sam feel great. She gawked around at the fanciful dinosaurs, the quaint shop fronts and the general small town appeal of the place. Drumheller was a picturesque prairie town, and Sam appreciated the chance to spend her summer here.

  She refocused on the road, narrowly missing a nasty pothole that leapt out in front of her. Clanking along behind, Paige swerved to the other side of the crater and also avoided a disaster.

  “Yee-haa!” her cousin crowed as though making it to work without a mishap was a personal challenge to be won.

  “Woo-hoo!” Sam yelled in response. The sky was electric-blue, the warm wind blew through her long hair…she felt awesome! Life was a wonderful journey, even if there were a few potholes in the road.

  When they finally screamed into the parking lot at the museum, they were flushed and out of breath.

  Jackson had gone on another of his mysterious morning meetings, which meant Sam was already hard at work when he arrived.

  “Morning, Gopher,” Jackson greeted her as he slipped on his lab coat. “Hey, I was wondering, anything new on the phantom fossil front?”

  Playing dumb seemed the best and safest course of action to Sam. “Nope, nada. I guess it’s gone for good. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m sure you were right. It was probably nothing more than a piece of plaster that broke off some big old bone.” She deliberately kept her tone light.

  “Now you’ve got it, Sam. I’m sure it was garbage that should have been thrown out in the first place instead of causing all that excitement.” Jackson added some papers to a file folder on the desk. “It’s a good thing nothing showed up missing on our manifest. Disappearing fossils are treated seriously, and I’d hate to have an investigation going on while we’re trying to work.”

  Or perhaps, he’d hate an investigation at any time, Sam thought. “What would happen if it turned out some person, say someone who worked here, deliberately stole the fossil?” She could have bitten her tongue. From the way this got his attention, she knew she’d thrown a red flag.

  “I don’t know who would want to steal one bone but if he, or she, were caught, the matter would immediately be turned over to the police. Good thing it was only a piece of plaster.”

  Sam thought she saw a suspicious glint in his baby blues as he walked away, then chalked it up to a trick of the light or, she admitted a little guiltily, a trick of her imagination.

  Give the devil his due; Jackson was sure chill. Because she was a grade A blabbermouth, Sam had practically told him he was her main suspect and he hadn’t even flinched.

  Her co-worker loaded more bones onto a cart near his sorting table. “I’ll put these in their proper bins in the storage area. That way nothing more, real or imagined, will go missing.”

  Had she heard a condescending note in his voice? Whatever it was, it pressed Sam’s irked-off button. She’d love to take this conversation to the next level, which, she was sure, would only lead to trouble. She recited her new mantra: “Keep a low profile, keep a low profile.” Goading Jackson into answering wouldn’t do any good. If he was guilty, he sure wouldn’t say anything helpful. If he wasn’t, then she’d come across like she was on a witch hunt with poor Jackson the main candidate for burning.

  Backing off was the best and smartest course of action. Retreating to a far bench, she studiously continued sorting specimens and was quietly working when Professor Caine came in.

  “Samantha, any problems?” he asked kindly.

  “No sir, everything is under control.” She hesitated, holding a half-filled box of bones. Pretending to back off from Jackson was one thing, but she was still hot on the case and needed answers or perhaps an ally. “Professor Caine?”

  “Yes?” He continued reading the file he’d brought with him.

  “I’ve been giving the missing fossil some thought and I don’t think we’re going to find it.” Sam’s palms felt sweaty and she gripped the box a little tighter.

  “You never know, Samantha. Things have a way of turning up, even odd pieces with an X on them.”

  Samantha put the box down and took a deep breath. “No it won’t, because I know someone stole it.”

  “What do you mean, stole it?” Professor Caine asked curtly. “Who would do such a thing? No one can get back to these work areas unless they have a security card. Surely, you’re not suggesting an employee took it.”

  Sam tried to phrase her answer exactly right. “I’m sure not wild about the idea of someone stealing it, especially since only Jackson and I were back here at the time. But we can’t avoid the hard facts either – the piece was here, then it wasn’t. No one moved it, misplaced it, or put it away. It had to have been stolen.”

  Professor Caine’s tone became flinty. “That, young lady, is a very serious accusation. If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything until I had solid proof to back up such an outrageous statement. We are talking about fouling the museum’s credibility and ruin-ing someone’s career.”

  Sam gulped. “Yes sir. I realize what I’m saying. The best solu-tion would be to find the fossil; then we might be able to track down who took it.”

  “This is a phantom item that doesn’t show up in any documents. I know you don’t want to believe it, Samantha, but I think what you saw was a piece of broken plaster that was routinely discarded by one of the technicians who know actual fossils.” There was no mistaking the implication in the harsh words. “It had no identification numbers, which it most certainly would have had if it was an actual specimen, and I’m not prepared to accuse anyone on the strength of what some inexperienced teenager saw! Why the museum is part of this ridiculous work experience program, I’ll never understand. From what I see,” and here he shook his head, “it’s not worth the aggravation.”

  The discussion ended abruptly as the professor turned to a leg bone and began marking it for examination. Sam continued loading her box in silence. No one could accuse the professor of being overindulgent, that was for sure. In a way, she could take it as a compliment. The professor didn’t treat her any differently from the rest of his slaves and she’d heard him snap at plenty of museum staff.

  Covertly keeping everything and everyone under surveillance for the remainder of the day, Sam went unrewarded as no new clues presented themselves. Her case had stalled.

  Paige dropped by, and Sam called her aside. “I hope things are going better in Computerville. The atmosphere is pretty glacial here.” She related Professor Caine’s response when she’d suggested someone had stolen the missing fossil. “He said I should have a ton of proof to back up any accusations, so after work tonight, I’m going to hunt for the fossil. I’m one of the few people who has actually seen it.”

  “That could be dangerous, Sam,” Paige warned nervously. “Whoever has it hidden obviously went to a lot of trouble to make it disappear without a trace. Don’t forget Agent D is still prowling around.”

  Sam thought of the newspaper article about the guard who’d been killed at the last fossil robbery, realizing how deadly serious this had become. And she thought of the promise she’d made to her mom and dad that she would stay out of trouble while she was away. If she continued, she could be putting her life at risk. On the other hand, if she found the missing fossil, it could help the RCMP nail the culprit responsible for this Death by Dinosaur Case, as she’d nicknamed it.

  Smiling reassuringly at her cousin, Sam said
with a confidence she hoped was warranted. “No sweat. I’ve spent years studying how to snoop unobtrusively.”

  Chapter 12

  Danger in the Dark

  The snooping unobtrusively began as soon as the day ended. Sam went to the cafeteria and dawdled over a root-beer float while she waited for the work areas to empty.

  “You’re too young to worry about overtime, Samantha!”

  Startled, Sam nearly sneezed root beer out her nose. With a huge effort, she managed to keep it down as she turned to face kindly Dr. Beech.

  “Oh, no overtime sir. I promised myself a reward for working extra hard today and this is what I picked.” She held up the gloopy glass of melted ice cream and mud-coloured pop. She could tell he didn’t consider the sticky beverage much of a reward.

  “Don’t stay too late, my dear. At your age, you shouldn’t spend any more time than necessary cooped up in this dusty old bone yard. I’ll be in my office for a short while if you need me.”

  Doctor Beech sure is nice, she thought as she watched him walk away. He was always poking around in the labs, talking to the staff and inquiring how things were going, plus he never criticized. Instead, he offered advice and knew every inch of the museum inside out. Maybe she should ask him where the best place to hide a seventy-five-million-year-old bone would be.

  Dawdling without drawing suspicion was an art form, and you could only do it for so long without some helpful soul coming over to ask if everything was okay. This meant she’d need to find a safe place to wait out any staff who might be working late. She had no choice. A stint standing on a toilet seat in the ladies’ washroom was required. Definitely not one of the more glamorous aspects of spying.

  After an ice age of standing on her porcelain perch, Sam was sure the coast would be clear. Carefully, she made her way through the quiet, empty building to the employees’ locker room. Jackson had committed the mistake of showing her how to use the locks by demonstrating on his own. Sam had filed his combination away without even thinking about it. She made sure the area was deserted then quickly moved to Jackson’s locker and dialled the correct numbers. The lock clicked open obligingly.

  His locker was neat without being fanatical. It contained an assortment of reference books, torn papers, old lunch bags and two battered calculators. There was also a pair of well-used hiking boots and a rock hammer painted bright purple. What was missing was a weird piece of plaster with a black X on the side.

  Sam closed the door and snapped the lock shut, automatically wiping her fingerprints off the metal with her shirtsleeve. She hadn’t really expected to find her prize in the first place she checked, but sometimes long shots paid off.

  The next logical place was the main fossil storage area, which contained hundreds of pieces. She’d be all night if she inspected every individual bin, shelf, and cupboard. And yet, she had to try; maybe she’d get lucky.

  When Sam pushed open the storage door, the room was dark, very dark…darker than the inside of a dinosaur! She fumbled with the light switch and the mercury vapour lights hummed, but the room stayed black. Then she remembered the lights took a moment to warm up. Sam waited as an eerie radiance slowly illuminated the huge room. She shivered. As soon as the lights were fully on, she made her way through the maze of storage bins.

  Inspecting the aisles of neatly stacked fossils, it occurred to Sam that she might never find the missing piece. Row after row of bins, all labelled and dutifully marked, stood waiting before her. Working her way to the back section of the room, Sam worried about how much time had already gone by. She cranked her efforts up a notch. As she was about to leave the dusty corner designated for storage of the South American project, she noticed something odd. A rusty bin next to the floor had no writing on the drawer but did have a shiny new padlock run through the handle. Ah-ha!

  Sam pulled on the lock without success. Her heart thumped a little faster. What would James Bond do? Probably get some new super gadget from Q that would vaporize the dumb lock with the press of a button.

  That’s it! A gadget! She needed a gadget, in this case the bolt cutters from the assembly room. They were used on the steel rods that held the skeletons together. She could cut the lock off with them! Sam hurried back down the dimly lit hallway. Her only light was that given off by the exit signs and the lit security locks on the lab doors. At the far end of the hallway, by the employee entrance, the TV screen that showed the outside of the building glowed dully above the door.

  The technician who ran the fabrication room where the huge fossils were pieced together was a neat freak, which Sam was thankful for as she felt her way to the tool storage cabinet. She knew the bolt cutters would be safely put away exactly where they should be. Sam’s confidence in the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder employee was rewarded as her fingers felt the long handles of the cutters. She noted the exact position so she could return them without causing any stress to the employee tomorrow.

  Moments later she was back in the storage area, busily trying to gnaw the heavy lock off with the unwieldy tool. She would need a lot more strength to snip it free, or…some mechanical advantage. She laid one of the two wooden handles of the cutting jaws against the floor then wedged the jaws firmly onto the padlock. With both feet planted on that handle, she leaned her weight down on the top one. The lock snapped in two as the sharp-edged cutters sliced through the hasp like a hot knife through a Nanaimo Bar.

  “Great!” Sam breathed, wiggling the broken metal off the bin. Carefully, she opened the drawer. Nestled inside, was a small piece of plaster with a telltale X clearly showing.

  Eureka! She’d found the missing fossil! After all the drama around this thing, she could hardly believe her eyes.

  Sam gently lifted it out. Nothing else was in the drawer – no hard evidence or even a hint as to who had stashed the fossil there. Had it been Jackson? One thing was certain. Whoever hid it would soon come for it. All she had to do was wait, watch and listen. The perpetrator was sure to give himself away with some telltale action or comment and then she’d have him. Sam tucked the troublesome specimen safely into her backpack.

  Feeling quite pleased with herself for a job well done, she returned the bolt cutters and made her way through the darkened hallways toward the exit. As she passed the large foyer window, something caught her attention.

  The big parking lot was empty except for one car in the far corner. Was there still someone working here? She listened to the building as it slept. All she heard were the usual mechanical noises as the automatic systems continued running the facility while no one was there, at least no one who was supposed to be there.

  Quietly, Sam walked down the hallway toward the exit. She would have to use her employee card to open the door as the alarms would be turned on and she didn’t need twenty overzealous policemen demanding she empty her pack.

  Up ahead, the TV monitor above the exit shimmered. As she was about to pass her security card in front of the magic box, she glanced up at the eerily lit screen above her head. The picture of the outside entry area appeared as it always did. She held her card in front of the scanning device.

  A bright dot on the screen drew her attention back to the monitor.

  She recoiled from the card scanner as if it held a live cobra and stared at the image, trying to figure out what the tiny light in the darkness was. Then it moved and she knew. It was the lit end of a cigarette. The inky blackness surrounding the spark now took on an ominous air.

  The car she’d seen in the parking lot flashed into her mind. It was blue and she remembered the blue rental car at the motel she and Paige had staked out. It had to be Agent D. He must have known from her bicycle that she was still in the building. He’d figured out what she was up to. All he had to do was wait till she left, then attack her and take the fossil.

  Sam’s heart pounded so loudly, she was afraid he’d hear it right through the door.

  Slowly, silently, she backed away. She was out of options as her limited security card wou
ld open only one other exit – the large overhead shipping door. This would cause a lot of noise, which would certainly alert Agent D as to where she was. Sam had no choice.

  The shipping door was on the other side of the building from where Agent D waited and would buy her a couple of minutes, allowing her time to get to her bicycle and freedom. There was only one teensy problem with this scenario. A bike was no match for a car. He’d be able to run her down as she tried to escape. She’d end up as prairie roadkill!

  Sam threaded her way through the quiet building. The maze of corridors went on forever before she finally arrived at the receiving area and the overhead door. Taking a deep breath, she held the card in front of the scanner; her arms tingled from the tension. The massive door clicked, whirred and noisily began opening.

  Sam swiped her card again causing the door to change direction and start to close, then she quickly dropped to the floor and wiggled under it. Running as fast as she could, she sprinted for her bike. She heard the door clang shut as she fumbled with the combination on her chain lock.

  Her brain and fingers were having a little trouble co-ordinating their efforts, which was rather frustrating to say the least. Finally, the lock came open. She left it lying on the ground and leapt onto the bike, churning the pedals as though the devil himself were after her, which was, in fact, the case.

  The sound of running feet told her Agent D had figured out what she was up to and was now closing in. Something clicked in her brain and she suddenly had a brilliant idea. Sam swung her bicycle toward the far corner of the parking lot. She needed only one small piece of luck for her idea to work.

  She caught movement in her peripheral vision. The dark figure of a man raced across the parking lot toward her and she increased her speed. For an old beater, her bike really moved out!

  Skidding to a stop at the car, she scanned the windows. “And we have a winner!” she crowed, dropping the bike and running to an open window on the car.